Death is not so bad;
I died long ago
And didn't realize it
Until now

I long for the breath of Autumn,
Lingering on the cusp of a heavier sun
And a horizon layered crackled gold,
For it's the chilled wisps of wind
I hold strong in my lungs
That's melancholic and
Warmly familiar,
It's the hint of a brewing shiver
That calms the aching mind
And eases the souls of the weary and withered.

What if, beyond the great unknown of death,
there is nothing
but fragments of memories
flickering into place
like a flame just ignited,
memories of all the good times,
all the first kisses
and starry nights,
family gatherings
and the wind dancing through autumn leaves,
all the moments that filled your heart,
and all of those that shattered it just the same,
all the stupid fights
and good jokes
and fruitful meals,
all the common day sights
reframed in to odd familiar beauty
when juxtaposed against an eternal scarcity,
all the long drives,
anxious waits,
and books you never quite did get around to reading,
all the long nights
and early mornings,
all the conversations you'll never forget,
and all the passing words you wish you hadn't,
to each season of your life,
each phase, each desire, every dream,
all the people that molded you,
even the ones that linger in foggy memories now,
what if, when the heart is weak and the body
begins to wither,
when your bones succumb to
to the gravity of existence,
what if this is all there is,
blurring in some melancholic haze,
forever reverberating
against the weightless expanse
of the void always yearning?

Your skin is a pastel melody,
Though you enrich my days
With a rhythm that is
Anything but monochromatic,

Your eyes a steadfast housing
For waves of gray-blue, green speckled swirls akin
To a summer storm just before dusk,
Thunderous like your will,
Raining refreshment like your essence,

Your curved pose carved in
In loops of my mind
You're always seemingly tangled in,
About where we will go to eat
This weekend, and
How many hours we will lay
Huddled up like hibernating cubs
In a nest we've built from blankets,

Winters no longer soaked with solace,
But now with the eager chance
To shut ourselves in,
If not only to enjoy the eternal company
Of two beings who love being with each other.

Now forever doesn't seem so nearly long
When I'm tripping over days
And sliding through the weeks
With you,

You make the cold days seem
Too brief in their presence,
And every day a little bit warmer
Than the last.

If my flesh could sing,
It'd bellow, it yearn in endless echo
For the familiar comfort
Of your fingers gracing over me
On a lazy Sunday morning
With nothing better to do
But enjoy one another,

For no longer am I
A man standing lonesome against the
Stiff gust of the present moment,
But a being who is only a
Malformed morph of skin and bones
Without the extension of myself,
The inner of my core,
The hue of all my colors,

The movement behind my dancing,
The alleviation to all my sorrows,
You,
For now, and for as long as I am me,
You,
For tomorrow, from yesterday, and all the years we dream,
You,
For as long as time tells and suns set,
You.

Listen to my words,
For once they speak
Without hearing themselves,
Bound by no self-realized gravity,
Buzzing around my fingertips
Like a moth lost in the
Flickering fire of a forgotten
Candle wick,

Listen to my praise,
As t................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.....................................this
feels
better,

and i can speak easier here
in the white
empty
everything
of a screen
not cluttered
with scary words
of thoughts i wish
weren't fake


and just typing like this
very small
very..... free
feels so good
just being the pile of leaves
not the spectacle of a fountain is might surround,

false flows of flowery water
tainting my rusting mind
with haphazardly crafted
anecdotes of a reality

too elaborated to be real

...

i can sleep here
with one eye open
to peek at the world i fall through

like observing softly
the dancing sheet of fresh linen
riding the curves of wind, hushing
through windows half ajar

Did the self-encasing ice
Ever melt enough
To reach beyond,
So you
Stretch your tired fingers
In the cool spring air,
And flicker your eyes open
To the mid-morning mist,

Breathed in just shallow enough
To soothe that rain-like pit-pattering heart
And coo the aches of chilly soul,
Hushing the wisps of winter wither
Beyond the mind and somewhere thither.

I wish to bury
     my toes like roots
     in the soil,

Breath in the crisp
     summer soaked air,
Ringing out a day's worth
     of yawning afternoon sun,

And fall back into
     the sleepless nights
That drifted into days
     that didn't matter.

I put myself back in that place,
Beyond the veil of that fall-turning-to-winter night
Clentched together in the backseat of my Honda,
The air was foggy with anticipation
As the delicate murmurs of gentle songs
Hummed, and I breathed in the scent of your hair
As my nose rest against the top of your head,
And your eyes reflected off mine,
A halo of fractured light from
The street lamp outside
Graced the silhouette of your lullaby face,

A stern wind shook the car
But were forever still
In each other's arms,

Warmed by the years
We dreamed of
Together.

good piano music
lots of oatmeal

warm and good

eating lots of oatmeal
yum yum **** yea

oatmeal getting lower
bowl getting lighter

do you ever feel like a bowl of good oatmeal
running low on oatmeal

piano music dying
piano music sad

oatmeal almost gone now
reflect on good memories
of plentiful oatmeal

scraping for last pieces
music getting loud

ow it hurts my ear
**** where is all my oatmeal?

Why is it
That just as my skin begins
To feel the coddling warmth
Of the emerging spring sunshine
That I long for rain?

As a poet,
I am gifted with
The graceful knowing
That in the midst of something
Beautiful,
I am living inside
A poem being written.

I'll marry you
If not only to extend
The warm breezy peace
Akin to summer nights softly spoken,

Because I need to hold you closer
Than the sky holds the clouds
For a time longer
Than the moon has chased the sun.

When I'm with you
I forgot doing dishes
Is even a chore.

What a horrid thought
To think I may die unknown
Only to become recognized
Beyond the wistful will of death,
Not because I'd miss out
On the fame akin to fluorescent bulbs,
But because I'd be eternalized as
The straws of my words,
Not sun-gleam of my being.

the cool, mid-afternoon breeze
flowing through my bedroom window
turns my heart to honey and
my feet into flowers,
rooted where I stand, though
I'm still not sure if I'm grounded
with the revitalization of defrost
or buried in unforeseen melancholy.

I eagerly await
To walk with you beneath
The shine of this summer's sun,
So maybe just then
You can feel a heat
Only rivaled
By the warmth
You bring to me.

You are to my touch
What a mountain view
Is to my eyes.

Our nights only sleepless
     Because our love never slumbers,

Whispering sweet nothings
     Better named "sweet somethings"

Because my yearning for you
     Is anything but a chasm coated with sugar,

But rather it's the draw of a future
     Laced with the hope of a content forever.

Never more have I wished
     For paper thin walls

Plaster white only rivaled
     By your porcelain pale skin

If not only to serve
     As some grand, seeing canvas,

Littered with words of our
     Half drunken slurs

And cozy expressions of love
     In a night yearning to stretch longer,

For if those walls could tell the tales
     Of our exploits through and through,

I'd trace them up, cut them out,
     And frame my adoration for you.

She compared me
To the sun,

And I felt nothing
But warmth

So it must be true.

And I'll forever affirm
There is no greater beauty
     Than the heavy silence
That accompanies the stagnant hymn
     Of a humble snowfall,
Bright against the murmuring
     Hum of a shadowy winter's night,

The world spinning slow,
     Frosty and quiet,
     Encased in white.

If I could freeze time,
Cease it's pass like the flow
Of a frosted over brook,
I'd find solace in the
Radiant warm of your embrace,

And I'd squeeze your hand
Tightly enough to feel
Our hearts beat against
Each other in the pulse
Of the veins of our fingers,

And we'd stare to the nighttime heavens,
It's inky blackness only rivaled
By the sleek straight of
Your hair I so adore
To tangle my hands in,

And the night sky would be
Spattered with illuminating dots
Burning silently in their stillness
Somewhere in the infinity
Of the cosmos,

And though they be
Millions, billions, trillions
Of miles away,
I look to your eyes
Shimmering in the basking moon,
And find an infinity
All our own,
Bundled up beside me
In the brisk hum of an unmoving night.

it's a late night drive
down a foggy street,
completely empty and
illuminated by the
soft glowing sign of an
underhead street light.  

neon juice
flows through your veins.  
the world
forgets how to spin.  
the trees
are still and
the engine roars.  

somewhere,
everything falls into place for someone.

With her hair
     Like the midnight Sky
And her eyes
     Gray as the hanging Moon

She told me I was bright like the Sun
     And I wished to create
A solar system together,
     Without any space between our orbits.

My car has been making
     Strange, clunky sounds,

So I turn up the music
     Until the bass smothers the concern.

Curled up together
On your couch,
Our hands intertwined,
Our backs
Against the hollow hum
Of Halloween's breeze
Lingering through
Dancing drapes
With dizzy dips
Before the cracked-window audience,

And the sun playfully peaked
Over the graceful dying trees
That lined suburban streets,
Looming over pumpkin
Patterned leaves, basked in
The approaching gloom of
Dusk,

And while the night
Tied that present to this memory,
I remember the scruff of your
Auburn hair against my nose,
The bewitching draw of
Some vague fragrance
My addict lungs yearn to
Breath once more,

And now,
With each passing October,
Autumn leaves never seem more alluring.

You live in the
Autumn wind,
Whispering hints of
An approaching winter
Both among the trees
And among my ribs,

And I'm left chilled
Without the warmth
Of your hand in mine,

And much like the grass
Speckled across the ground
Cold and a tiresome gray,
My chest freezes over.

Lately,
I've had you on my mind
Like an old song
You've rediscovered the beauty in,
And you've been occupying
The rooms in my head
For once without a chance
Of vacancy.

For all the words I've written,
I still feel as though I will die
Completely unexpressed.

Like a daisy
Rising curious from the charcoal ash
Of a forest fire scorch

Through all the anguish and doubt,
As broad as a still summer sky
Comes clarity.

So here's to all the arsonists of the world,
Lest the beauty of metamorphism
Succumb to stagnation
And turn to rot.

it was when
i realized that
the glint of silver
resting itself
like withered hands
on worn wooded counters
in the corner of my eyes
still hopeful,

it was then
that i realized it
glimmered from
the key to my freedom,
strung around my neck
within my reach but
beyond my sight

and all i had to do
was yearn for it
and open my eyes to the truth that always was.

I'm imprisoned
     Behind this static
          Screeching,
Echoing its sick
Reverberations inside my head
     But disguising itself
     As muck
Both in the expulsion
     Of my tongue
And the frantic scripture
     Of my pen working fruitlessly.

This morning,
     I pulled a flaming string
           Of *****, ruby tinted hair
     From the inside of a sock on my floor,
     And in the shower,
          I found a single thread
               Of burning, stranded follicle
     Wrapped around the drain's grate,

Which struck me as odd,
     Because you've never step foot
     In my shower (as much as I might have wished),
          You've never even set foot in
           That bathroom at all,
     It was always too ***** to touch your porcelin skin,
          To by seen by your eyes or feel your judgement,
     But even so,
           I still find your hair everywhere.

This morning,
     I put on a shirt,
     One that you said held me half as nice
          As you ever could,
     And I thought of your words
     And I thought of your gentle touch as I plucked
          A lingering fiber of a lost flame flicker
     From the breast of my attire,

And another wriggling yarn undone
     Soaked in the end of a sunset
          From the interior of my ripped jeans pocket
     That still embedded the whisper of your perfume,
     Your hair was absolutely everywhere.

This morning,
     I stumbled into my car
     And sulked in the sun
          As a hair of yours relaxed
          Among the dust of dashboard features,
     And the sight of it
          Prompted my mind to wake,
          My hand to shift into gear,
          And my tired legs to throttle the gas.

This morning,
     The cars and trees and blank-slated faces
     Hazed together in a fuse of
          Gray and brown and all the other ugly colors,
     The colors of dead things,
     Which must have been why
           I drove to the cemetery.
     The gates, rusted and lonesome,
          Creaked a "hello",
          And the ground was frosty
                To my arrival.

This morning,
     I found a hair of yours
     Draped over the head of a stone,
     And that struck me as utterly odd
          Since you've never been here before now,

And this morning at work,
     My pants were covered in dirt
          From kneeling before you as the sun came up,
     But I didn't care,
     I had to come see you
          And ask you to keep

Your ******* hair to yourself.

In the flames of my own hell,
     I have learned to mistake the fire's burn

For comforting warmth.

We all like to think
     Our lives as though they're
           Stories,

And ourselves to be
     The hero, grand and shining
          In some tale yet to be written,

An underdog,
     Burdened with the weight of the world,
          Waiting for that lucky break,

But sometimes our final act
    Never resolves to an exciting conclusion,
         Because no one is guaranteed anything more
              Than the role of a background character

In someone else's saga,
     Prose proposed entirely devoid
          Of our own happy endings.

I dreamt of you last night,
     smiling sweet like the sun
          with a surface cool to the touch,
Your chest rising against mine
     with a spark of
            never-close-enough,
And your chest falling
     as you exhaled flower petals
          and spring days
               right after it's rained,

And when I awoke
      in my stone-cold
            casket of a bed,
Even after pulling over
     Another blanket (twice as thick),

I shivered.

I'm sitting here,
     Lost among the
Static shadows of
     A slumbering morning,

And while the world
     Blinks awake
I'm left wondering
     When my head
Will finally succumb
                              To sleep.

All the pieces
     Of myself
I never quite
     Understood,

Indescribable
     To those who've never seen
The colors of a night
      Never long enough.

I woke up today
With the overwhelming feeling
That I was alive,

That my skin could feel
Cold and warmth,
That my heart could feel
Joy and pain,

And I stood in the shower
And let the water wash over me,
Wondering if all of my troubles
Were self constructed,

And what was keeping me back
From feeling connected to reality,
Like a leaf to a branch,
A tree to the crust of the Earth,

Like light from the sun
That's always guaranteed.

You seem like a thing of the past,
Like a book I've read years ago
And forgotten most of the plot to.  

Though a vague structure of the events
Remains cemented forever in
The corners of my mind
More dark and unkempt,
The details that once made it hurt
Have withered into dust,
Now only scattered
In small concentrations
Across the ledges of my days
That I forgot once carried the weight
Of my adoration for you.

Does the sun
Chase the moon
Afraid of day,
Or does the moon
Follow the sun
Unknowing of night?

And so we lay
On warm carpets
And smooth tile floors,
Safe from the grasp
Of the spirits of the stars
And the beauty of unpredictability,
And we call it "stable"
To keep ourselves from
Creeping towards insanity.

Grass roots
     Hear my whisper
And feel my touch
     Skirting soft
           As I trace my hand along
                  The moon kissed curls,

And when a blade
     Catches the round of my finger,
Please,
      Please don't let go.

The top
     Of a Ferris wheel
In the fleeting breeze
     Of the setting summer sun.

I'd let myself
     Burn up in every last sunset
If it meant
     I'd become part of the sky.

What a cruel cycle
     That the cure to
           Suffering
     Is the inevitable shine
           Of beauty.

Would it be better to say
     We are a conglomerate
Of everything we love,
     Or everyone who
          Loves us?

Sometimes,
    When I'm grasping
          For something to say,

I lay on my back
And stare carefully
     At the dizzy dance
Of the ceiling fan's motion,

And think of all the other times
      I longed for the sky to
            Crack,
      The ground to shake,
      The leaves to tell me
             Their secrets,

All the times I yearned
For something,
      Anything,
To come crashing in a
      Passionate heat
      Into my life again.

It feels like
The days pass faster
Than there are sunsets
For me to catch,

Because for so long
    Have I strived
To chase beauty,

But endlessly I seem
    To forget
That perhaps capturing it
Defeats the goal
    Of experiencing it,

So now I find myself
    Like a fly trapped
Between the glass
    And the screen
Of the window to
    Some outside world,

Doomed to burn up
    In my self-generated
Heat, born from the
    Friction of my struggle.

If I imagine rain
     A downpour dampening
This melancholy mess
Matted and mistaken,
     Strung from strings
Uncertain and chimes
    Brass and scratched,
Headlights screeching
Unforgiving into the swift
    Grasp of dusk
    Over cornfields serenaded
By a cacophony of
     Twitching twigs
     Broken and rattling
Against my ribs beginning to hollow,

If the rain
Could caress my worries
And cauterize my concerns,
I'd wade in the
Static of storm clouds
     And cheer to the
     Clap of atmospheres
          Cracking, crackling
               Chaotic sheets
Of tips and taps,
And oceans down the
     Windows and a song
     Crafted on the roof
That protects me
Unrightfully so,
As I need to be soaked,
I need to wash away
In a flood of bubbling
Rain and splash
     Against the abstraction
     Of these thoughts,
Baking in the sun
Like tea that has only
     Begun to brown.